Maulana Muhammad Ali Jauhar

Maulana Muhammad Ali Jauhar, was born in 1878 in Rampur in India. He belonged to the family of "Rohilla" of the famous "Yousaf Zai" tribe of Pathans. They later on went to Uttar Pardesh and setteled their partially. Despite the early death of his father, the family strived and Ali attended the [Deoband Madaressah]Aligarh Muslim University and Lincoln College, Oxford University in 1898, studying modern history.

Upon his return to India, he served as education director for the Rampur state, and later joined the Baroda civil service. He became a brilliant writer and orator, and wrote for major English and Indian newspapers, in both English and Urdu. He launched The Comrade, a weekly in English, from Calcutta, and outlined in the opening number of January 14, 1911 “the frank recognition of yawning differences that divide” Hindus and Muslims. Written and edited by one man and produced on expensive paper, The Comrade quickly gained circulation and influence. After twenty months the paper moved to Delhi, the Raj’s new capital. It acquired a sister, an Urdu-language daily Hamdard, in 1913.

Mohammad Ali worked hard to expand the AMU, then known as the Mohammedan Anglo-Oriental College, and He founded Jamia Millia Islamia, a flowering institution with its own individuality and usefulness in 1920, which was later moved to Delhi. Speaking increasingly of Muslim fears and Muslim rights, Muhammad Ali felt that Hindu communalism was gaining ground in Congress. He, therefore, shared the dominant Muslim feeling that Swaraj (independence) would be a Hindu prize and Muslims would need to battle for their rightful share of the spoils of self-government.

 

He declared at the first Round Table Conference in London (1930), that he would not return to India alive unless the country was set free. “I would prefer to die in a foreign country so long as it is a free country,” he addressed to the British, and went on, “and if you do not give us freedom in India you will have to give me a grave here.”

He further went on. “The Hindu-Muslim problem is your creation. But not altogether. It is the old maxim of ‘divide and rule’. But there is a division of labour. We divide and you rule.” His words in London about the position of an Indian Muslim have gone into history. Jauhar was not only an upright leader, activist, scholar but also a man of letters. His following Urdu stanza about martyrdom of Hussain ibn Ali has been a slogan for many decades now: Ali attended the Round Table Conference to show that only the Muslim League spoke for India's Muslims. He died soon after the conference in London, on January 4, 1931 and was buried in Jerusalem according to his own wish.